Tool

Description

Params

read_note

Read a note's content and metadata

path (required), prettyPrint — response includes an etag

write_note

Create or update a note

path, content (required), mode: overwrite/append/prepend, if_match (optional etag)

list_directory

List files and subdirectories

path (empty = vault root), prettyPrint

get_frontmatter

Read YAML frontmatter from a note

path (required), prettyPrint

update_frontmatter

Set or remove frontmatter keys (format-preserving)

path (required), updates (JSON object), removeKeys (JSON array), if_match (optional etag)

manage_tags

Add or remove a tag on a note

path, action: add/remove (required), tag (required), location: frontmatter/inline, if_match (optional etag)

list_all_tags

Aggregate all tags across the vault with counts

prettyPrint

get_backlinks

Find all notes that link to a target note

path (required), prettyPrint

patch_note

Apply a heading-anchored patch to a note

path, heading, position: before/after/replace_body, content (all required), if_match (optional etag)

delete_note

Move a note to .obsidian-mcp/trash (requires confirm); pass permanent: true to hard-delete instead

path, confirm (must match path exactly), permanent (optional, default false), if_match (optional etag)

move_note

Move or rename a note within the vault (requires confirm); rewrites unambiguous inbound links by default

src, dst, confirm (must match src exactly), updateLinks (bool, default true), dryRun (bool, default false), if_match (optional etag; ignored when dryRun is true)

search_notes

BM25 full-text search with ranked results and match snippets

query (required), limit, maxMatchesPerFile, caseSensitive, searchContent, searchFrontmatter, pathScope, prettyPrint

search_regex

Search using RE2 regex or glob pattern

pattern (required), isGlob, scope, limit, maxMatchesPerFile, prettyPrint

read_multiple_notes

Read the content of multiple notes in a single request

paths (required, JSON array), summary (bool, default false), headChars (int, default 200) — each entry includes an etag

get_notes_info

Get metadata for multiple notes without reading full content

paths (required, JSON array) — each entry includes an etag

get_vault_stats

Get aggregate statistics about the entire vault

includeTokenCounts (bool, default false)

get_periodic_note

Get a periodic note (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly)

granularity (required, enum: daily/weekly/monthly/quarterly/yearly), offset (int, default 0), createIfMissing (bool, default false)

get_recent_periodic_notes

Get the N most recent periodic notes

granularity (required, enum: daily/weekly/monthly/quarterly/yearly), count (int, default 5), summary (bool, default true)

get_recent_changes

List notes most recently modified in the vault

limit (int, default 10), since (string, ISO-8601), summary (bool, default true)

audit_notes

Audit the vault for hygiene issues: orphans, dangling links, untagged notes, duplicate titles

classes (JSON array: orphans/dangling-links/untagged/duplicate-titles, default all), limit (int per class, default 20)

get_note_outline

Return a note's heading tree (level, text, line number) without its body

path (required), prettyPrint

read_note_lines

Read a bounded range of lines from a note

path, startLine (required), lineCount (int, default 200, capped at 2000)

rename_tag

Rename a tag vault-wide, across frontmatter and inline occurrences

oldTag, newTag (both required)

replace_in_note

Scoped search-and-replace within a single note, literal or regex

path, pattern, replacement (all required), isRegex (bool, default false), maxOccurrences (int, default 0 = unbounded)

Parameter

Type

Default

Description

query

string

required

Search query. Multi-term queries use OR logic; the full phrase contributes a bonus score.

limit

integer

20

Maximum number of results

maxMatchesPerFile

integer

3

Maximum match snippets per result

caseSensitive

boolean

false

Case-sensitive matching

searchContent

boolean

true

Include note body in scoring

searchFrontmatter

boolean

true

Include frontmatter values in scoring

pathScope

string

—

Glob pattern to restrict search scope (e.g. Daily Notes/*)

prettyPrint

boolean

false

Format JSON with indentation

Parameter

Type

Default

Description

pattern

string

required

RE2 regex or glob pattern

isGlob

boolean

false

Treat pattern as a filepath glob (** matches across dirs)

scope

string

content

path, content, or both

limit

integer

20

Maximum number of results

maxMatchesPerFile

integer

5

Maximum match snippets per result

prettyPrint

boolean

false

Format JSON with indentation

Prompt

Description

Arguments

summarize_note

Summarize a note: 3 key bullets, entities, open questions

path (required)

daily_note_review

Review a daily note: carryover TODOs, link suggestions, missing tags

offset (int, default 0)

weekly_review

Weekly retrospective from the last 7 daily notes

weekOffset (int, default 0)

find_related

Suggest related notes worth linking, grouped by relationship type

path (required)

vault_health_check

Audit orphans, dangling links, untagged notes, duplicate titles; prioritize fixes

(none)

Resource / Template

URI

MIME

Description

Vault statistics

obsidian://vault/stats

application/json

Note count, total size, top 10 tags, vault root

Tag index

obsidian://vault/tags

application/json

All tags with note counts, sorted by frequency

Note content

obsidian://note/{path}

text/markdown

Raw markdown (frontmatter + body) for any vault note

Periodic note

obsidian://periodic/{granularity}

text/markdown

Current daily / weekly / monthly / quarterly / yearly note

Backlinks

obsidian://backlinks/{path}

application/json

All notes linking to the target, with line numbers and snippets

Flag

Env Var

Default

Valid values

--vault

OBSIDIAN_VAULT_PATH

(required)

Absolute or relative path to an existing directory. Validated at startup — non-existent paths or files (not dirs) cause an immediate error. Surrounding whitespace is trimmed.

--version

—

—

Prints the binary version to stdout and exits. Does not require --vault.

--extensions

OBSIDIAN_EXTENSIONS

.md,.markdown,.txt,.canvas

Comma-separated list. Each entry should start with . (e.g. .md). Whitespace around entries is trimmed; empty entries are discarded. Only files matching one of these extensions are visible to MCP tools.

--ignore

OBSIDIAN_IGNORE

.obsidian,.git,node_modules,.DS_Store,.trash

Comma-separated list of file/directory names to skip during traversal. Match is by name (not glob). Whitespace trimmed; empties discarded.

--pretty

OBSIDIAN_PRETTY

false

CLI: bare --pretty enables it. Env var: any value accepted by Go's strconv.ParseBool — 1, t, T, true, TRUE, True, 0, f, F, false, FALSE, False. Anything else causes a startup error.

--max-batch

OBSIDIAN_MAX_BATCH

10

Integer ≥ 1. Non-integer or <1 causes a startup error. Caps the number of files processed in a single batch tool call (Phase 4). High values increase memory usage and token count per response — very large batches can overflow an AI client's context window and slow down individual tool calls. Keep at or near the default unless your vault files are small.

--max-results

OBSIDIAN_MAX_RESULTS

20

Integer ≥ 1. Non-integer or <1 causes a startup error. Caps the number of search results returned. High values increase response token count — returning hundreds of results per search can exhaust the AI client's context window with low-relevance entries. Increase only when precision-recall trade-offs require broader result sets.

--log-level

OBSIDIAN_LOG_LEVEL

warn

One of: debug, info, warn, error (lowercase, case-sensitive). Unknown values silently fall back to warn — no error, no warning logged.

--read-only

OBSIDIAN_READ_ONLY

false

CLI: bare --read-only enables it. Env var: same ParseBool rules as --pretty. When enabled, mutating tools (write_note, delete_note, move_note, etc.) are not registered — they never appear in tools/list.

--trash-retention-days

OBSIDIAN_TRASH_RETENTION_DAYS

30

Integer ≥ 0. Non-integer or negative causes a startup error. delete_note moves notes to .obsidian-mcp/trash/<timestamp>/<path> by default instead of hard-deleting; entries older than this many days are pruned once at startup.

--vault-name

OBSIDIAN_VAULT_NAME

the vault directory's basename

Used to build the obsidian://open?vault=<name>&file=<path> deep links in search_notes, search_regex, list_directory, and get_recent_changes results. Set explicitly if the vault directory's name doesn't match the name Obsidian shows for it.

--transport

OBSIDIAN_TRANSPORT

stdio

stdio or http. http starts a TLS-secured Streamable HTTP listener instead of speaking MCP over stdio — see SECURITY.md § HTTP transport.

--http-bind

OBSIDIAN_HTTP_BIND

127.0.0.1

Bind address for --transport http. Non-loopback addresses are refused unless --allow-non-loopback is also set.

--http-port

OBSIDIAN_HTTP_PORT

8443

Port for --transport http.

--allow-non-loopback

OBSIDIAN_ALLOW_NON_LOOPBACK

false

Allows --http-bind to a non-loopback address. Requires non-empty --allowed-hosts and --allowed-origins — an explicit, three-flag confirmation gate.

--allowed-hosts

OBSIDIAN_ALLOWED_HOSTS

(empty)

Comma-separated Host header allowlist for --transport http. Required with --allow-non-loopback.

--allowed-origins

OBSIDIAN_ALLOWED_ORIGINS

(empty)

Comma-separated Origin header allowlist for --transport http. Required with --allow-non-loopback.

--client-ca

OBSIDIAN_CLIENT_CA

(none)

Path to a PEM file of trusted client CAs. Enables mandatory mutual TLS for --transport http — connections without a valid client certificate are rejected.